Freight Accidents, Broker Tools, & More Q&A | Final Mile 81

Nate Cross & Ben Kowalski answer your freight brokering questions and discuss:

• 🚛 Handling Accidents on Your Loads – What to do when an accident happens involving one of your shipments.
• 🖥️ Essential Software for a New Brokerage – What’s worth the investment and where you can cut costs when launching your freight brokerage.
• 📄 Brokers & BOLs – Do customers expect brokers to generate their own Bills of Lading (BOLs)?

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Chapters

• 0:00 Handling Accidents in Freight Transportation
• 11:13 Essential Tools for New Freight Brokers

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:19

Welcome back, final mile. We got a few questions here today coming from YouTube comments and I think we had one from Facebook as well. But keep sending them our way. We'll keep answering them as they come in and they're relevant, but make sure to check out all of our other content as well. Freight360.net You'll find the Freight Broker Basics course there if you're looking for an educational option, and please check out all of the sponsors in the description box to help support the channel. You've got quick scope for uh carrier verification of id and location. You've got levity for uh email and ai integrations and all kinds of awesome stuff there. Um Blue Book for produce and lumber marketing and lead generation and DAT for all your load posting and analytics and whatnot. So we'll get right into it here today. Our first question was was it a YouTube comment or someone emailed it over?

Speaker 1: 1:17

How's YouTube About accidents? So how do you handle a situation when there's an accident on one of your loads? Accidents, so how do you handle a situation when there's an accident on one of your loads? This is, like you know, different from a claim where, like something just got damaged in transit, accidents are, depending on the severity, can throw a whole new level to, you know, an oops in the freight world. So I'm curious your take on this. But the first thing that I'm like always trying to figure out when this happens is like, is the driver OK, you know what's the severity of it? Because I mean, I've seen everything from like hey driver ran into a concrete pole at the driver's or the customer's location to uh, fatality in a crash, like I've I've seen the whole range of them.

Speaker 2: 2:08

and like dude, the, the, when someone gets seriously hurt or there's a fatality, like it hits you weird, it hits you like real, real bad because it still upsets me, like the one that I ran into this probably like nine years ago now, but even like telling that like makes me like choke up and feel um.

Speaker 1: 2:24

So why don't you kick this one off here with? You know how do you handle the accident situations.

Speaker 2: 2:29

I mean, my first step is just trying to understand what's happening and I would say what is super important, like imperative, is that you are documenting all of this and it's again all in your TMS. I can't stress this enough, like how many smaller companies people are like well, I got it in an email thread or I got it in a chain over there, right? Nobody else in your company can see your inbox. So you need to take whatever correspondence, whatever you have, and upload that into your TMS so that you can break down and write down exactly what has occurred by time, step-by-step. I think that's your first step is just assessing what the situation is, documenting it, getting a clear understanding from the driver.

Speaker 2: 3:10

Usually first, maybe you get the information from the shipper. Same thing. I'm like hey, want as much information as possible. If there are cameras on site, if it happened at the shipper, hey, do you have any footage of this? Can you please let me know what time this occurred? Because, like, I've seen scenarios where, like a shipper's like, oh, this driver did this and we find out when we're like going through asking more questions that like they don't even know who did it, they don't really know when it happened, they can't verify that it was this driver versus another one. So, again, just really, step one is finding out what does everybody know and like meticulously writing this down for yourself, like this time we know this, at this time we know this.

Speaker 2: 3:51

And you're going to get two sides of the story right Either the shipper and the receiver and the driver and then first just trying to understand and I think to your point, the first move in this is empathy, right, trying to understand it from their point of view, not arguing whether it's the shipper or the driver like, hey, just genuinely caring enough to go. Hey, just walk me through what's happening so I can help try to resolve this for everyone, right? If you start that conversation with, oh my God, what did you do? I can't believe this. My customer's yelling at me like one. It makes all of it harder. You're going to get less accurate information and you're going to create more work for yourself, right? So, taking a deep breath, bringing yourself down even though your customer might be screaming or yelling and it could be a very stressful scenario the more you can take a beat get up, walk away from your desk, walk outside, take a deep breath for a minute, come back in and then make the conversations or make the phone calls.

Speaker 1: 4:42

Yeah, so I want to. Now I want to talk through, like the the tactical side of this. Um, outside of, you know, is everyone okay and whatnot, because now you have to figure out, well, what happens now. So we definitely want to make sure your communication with all the parties is is very good, right, Get your customer updated and whatnot, because now you have to find out is there damage to the product or you know, is it just hey, they gotten a little fender bender and they can send another truck in.

Speaker 2: 5:09

Yeah, yeah, you got. You got like three or four things right. Is there damage to property? Is there damage to the vehicle? Is there damage to the cargo? Was anybody injured? Not in that order like you would go injured driver obviously first. Yeah, yeah, cargo, probably. How's the truck? And is there any damage at the site?

Speaker 1: 5:26

So, because you're, and we can't give every possible scenario here, but you can look at possible solutions here. So let's say you've got like totaled product, right? Well, that's going to be part of your claim there. Do you have partially damaged product because it shifted or whatnot? Again, that's part of your claim there. Do you have partially damaged product because it shifted or whatnot? Um, again, that's part of a claim. Now, how does this product going to get to where it's going?

Speaker 2: 5:49

well, there's the third one too, which is, even if you have, like, all of it being damaged, then you've got to see is there salvage value, right, like, are you still able to take this somewhere to get some value, even if all of it has been?

Speaker 1: 6:02

damaged. So so really, what you have to do here is you have to figure out what are we doing with the freight now and, depending on what that is, it's going to determine how you're going to handle the next steps. Because the carrier if it's an owner-operator and it's just them and they can't drive their truck well, now we've got to look at finding another carrier to either haul that trailer if the trailer is still good, you might have a larger carrier that maybe this, this happened right in their domicile town Like, yeah, you know, we'll just send another, we'll send another truck out there, we'll swap the trailers, all good. Or maybe it's so minor that the driver is like I just got to go get you know, I don't know, pop in my tire, I just got to get some maintenance done at the truck stop and we'll be rolling down the road. It just really all depends. Like we had had one yesterday where a driver's tire blew out and it was as simple as he just had to go to a loves truck stop and get it, get it fixed, and you know, they're rolling down the road.

Speaker 1: 7:02

So but yeah, this is. You know. This stuff all goes into the claims process. This is why you have cargo insurance, that that covers the actual goods, a commodity, on the truck, and then you've got your liability insurance that they, the carrier, has for, uh, auto liability if they caused, you know, damage to, to someone else and whatnot. Um, but yeah, it all depends. I mean, I've seen everything from a truck that blew up into flames and like burn everything to the ground and then it's a huge mess like you're not salvaging any of that. It's more of a cleanup at that point.

Speaker 2: 7:33

So and then again to just take that all the way. No, I think just to take that all the way to the end. For anyone is that, like again, if there's damage like Nate said to the cargo, it's going to go on the cargo policy of the carrier. If there was damage to property, it's going to go in their auto policy.

Speaker 2: 7:49

Right, your insurance as a freight broker typically doesn't come into play and, the thing to remember, or, as you're going through the processes, this is also why it's super important to let the carrier know you're trying to also resolve it for their benefit, not just your customer, because you need the carrier involved in the process. If the carrier is not responding to their insurance company, you can't get updates on the insurance the way the carrier can, because you aren't that insurance company's client. You do not have any policy with them. The carrier does, so the carrier is going to have to participate and send these things to their insurance company to move the claim forward in any instance. So working together is absolutely one of the most important things. If you start with conflict and they just start dragging their feet, these things can take months before the carrier is even responding to their insurance company.

Speaker 1: 8:41

Yeah, I want to add one last thing in. So we talked about if you have to have another trailer or another company come haul the trailer, if you're in a situation with trailer interchange where you know one and trailer interchange insurance, where one company's insurance policy covers equipment from another, another motor carrier. So we had one where and this was a tire blowout as well we had one carrier hauling another carrier's trailer and the tire on the trailer blew out, right. So the driver's like, hey, broker, can you like I gotta get, I need four hundred dollars to get this tire replaced. Yeah, and we're like, well, why are we paying it? And the driver's like, well, it's not my trailer and the you, the tire blew out. Well, did you run over something? No, it just went out.

Speaker 1: 9:34

So it goes to the shop and the shop report is like the tread was at zero, like it was a poorly maintained trailer. So we go to the carrier that owns the trailer and they're like, yeah, our agreement doesn't cover any maintenance, that's on whoever's hauling it. And so we got everyone like pointing fingers like the spider or the spider-man, uh, meme, yeah, trying to figure out like, well, who's ultimately responsible here and what ended up? Um, I believe happening was the carrier was responsible because part of the contract is for them to have their equipment supposed to be in and you know you know, being used by somebody.

Speaker 1: 10:08

So, but, yeah, that's important if you're dealing with trailer and change. But anyway, not to go down a rabbit hole, we'll move on to our next question here. Um, hey guys, I'm about to launch my own brokerage in a couple months. What are some softwares that you that are worth the money, and what type of software can I cheap out or get away with? For example, um, an rmi, rms, carrier 411, tms says I won't have income coming in for a few months.

Speaker 1: 10:35

All right, we got a whole episode on our favorite technology and a lot of content on technology, so we'll try to keep this one brief. My rule of thumb is Don't buy something until you need it and try to bootstrap your way. So, for example, like a TMS, there are cheap or free versions that you can utilize until you're ready to upgrade or pay for a more expensive one. All right, I think things that you cannot cheap out on if you don't have a carrier network. You need a load board, right, like you. We see people trying to cover freight in our Facebook group and I get it. Excuse me, um, but uh, we, hey, we got a link in the show notes DAT.

Speaker 1: 11:25

You get 10% off your first year. Right, there's like, and there's like three different levels, um, different tiers of it and whatnot. Um, you need to have a load board. You're not going to have any access to the market or any insights on the market conditions or lane rates and whatnot, if you don't have a load board. So you don't need to have every load board out there. But if you just get DAT to start off, that's one that I think you need Carrier vetting. You need some way that you're vetting carriers. I've seen people that are like yeah, we're just going to use the FMCSA's data.

Speaker 1: 11:58

Well it is very like. So like they're going to rely on FMCSA data and, you know, work directly with an insurance company to pull insurance data. But there are super affordable carrier vetting options out there that will handle insurance carrier vetting all that stuff for you, like Highway, for example. You don't have to have the whole kit and caboodle with onboarding and everything, but if you just have their lowest level you can see all right, I've got all their inspection history, I've got all their insights, I've got all of their authority information and reports about them and all this stuff. Like you don't have to go to the top tier level. But I think it's really important to have access to the market with load boards and I think the carrier vetting is really important. I think where you can get away is like your cheaper or free version of a TMS at first, a free version of a CRM like a HubSpot or something like that, manual accounting or the cheaper accounting stuff. I'm trying to think what else am I missing here, technology wise, that you can point?

Speaker 2: 13:02

out. I think you pretty much hit them right. Like if I had to bare bones a brokerage right, Like, I would probably go with a free version of like a send it first. It's good enough that you should be able to do that for just about anything.

Speaker 1: 13:16

I would definitely have Like just to add in here. You don't know if you're going to succeed or stick with it Correct, right.

Speaker 2: 13:21

So and again, like we've done this a lot with a lot of clients and I'm like that's what I suggest. I'm like, hey, take a look at a send. And I think Rose Rocket had a to point about those two I'm like you definitely need and here's even cheaper, right Is one. You're going to need a CRM because your first few months you're prospecting more than you're quoting. So like to me, get a free CRM or a free version of HubSpot or 20 bucks version so you can organize your leads and follow up with them. That's where you're going to spend your first few months.

Speaker 2: 13:51

Once you've got some prospects that are asking you to quote loads, then pull the trigger on that Now all of a sudden, because you need to quote. You need that because you need rates and you need to access the market. Now I'm going to pay for DAT. Now, if I'm going to start covering loads, I'm immediately going to probably pick up carrier 411 because it is a little cheaper than highway. But if you've got any budget, I would as soon as possible get the low level of highway because you are going to be a target as a new broker for fraud.

Speaker 2: 14:18

They're going to see your credit history on the load board. When you post loads up, every fraudulent double broker is going to be reaching out to you and trying to steal your freight. So having K0411 at a minimum when you're covering loads if at all possible highway, I think is the second thing. And the factoring thing you're not really going to get charged Like. Again, we usually send people to Hall Pay because, again, depending on where your credit is and things, you're going to need that lined up pretty quickly but that's not really a cost.

Speaker 1: 14:47

Yep, good, good answers there. That was a good question. Last one here is is as a broker, there's a customer request that you make your own bill of lading or BOL. It depends. So I have always seen this as a value add. Is that if you know if the customer is like, hey, can you make a BOL, it's like, yeah, I'll get it all prepared for you. You don't have to worry about filling everything out, we'll get it all taken care of. You can usually generate one right out of your TMS. If not, there's billofladingorg. I believe we have a template on our website, freight360.net as well, under the resources downloadable section.

Speaker 1: 15:27

That follows the shipment from origin to destination right. A lot of times the shipper will produce it. Sometimes the broker will prepare it and send it to the shipper, but it starts there. Once it gets loaded, the shipper is signing off. You know, here's what we had loaded. The driver signs they're accepting here. Here's what's on my truck. And then the receiver signs here's what I'm accepting as delivered.

Speaker 1: 15:54

Right, and if there's a damage, you're gonna annotate that. Or if something's missing, you annotate that. But yeah, you can create a bill and there's no law that says you can't. There's no law that says you have to. If a customer asks if you can do it, by all means, yes, I would just make sure that if you're filling it out since it is the legal paperwork that follows that shipment make sure you understand exactly what the commodity is, what the quantity is, because a lot of times if you let's say something is like palletized, and you have the wrong number of pallets on there, Well, when it gets to the receiver and they're counting and they're like well, this, this says they were supposed to be, you know, 18, and there's only 17 on it, or whatever the case might be Right.

Speaker 1: 16:35

The other thing, too is like, when it gets, when it gets signed, like, even if you create it for your customer, they should still be reviewing it and annotating anything additional on there. Like, was it, you know, was it shipper, load and count, so the shippers verifying it and the customer or the driver's not seeing it. You know any details like that. You still need to go through the process, but who generates it doesn't really make a difference. You got anything to add on that?

Speaker 2: 17:01

Yeah, blind BOLs and double blind BOLs. It's not uncommon for a shipper or your customer to not be. The place is actually where you're loading the product and they have. You create a BOL where they don't want the place you're picking up from or delivering to to know who sent that order. So a blind BOL is usually where it's going to. They don't know where it came from, and a double blind is neither side knows where the product is coming from or going to.

Speaker 1: 17:28

Yeah. And why does that happen is typically they don't want to lose business. So if I'm a let's say I'm a distribution company and I'm going to drop ship a product from one of my suppliers right to one of my customers, I don't want them to see where it's coming from because they might just cut me out of the. You know why am I going to go to you? I'll just go right to them right?

Speaker 2: 17:45

Yep, that's why you put it in the place they're getting the product. Yeah Well, if you're charging me a margin and you just shipped it from Acme supply, I'm going to call Acme supply and see what they'll charge me to send this order next week.

Speaker 1: 17:55

Yep, exactly Good questions, though Keep them coming our way.

Speaker 2: 17:58

Final thoughts whether you believe you can or believe you can't, you're right.

Speaker 1: 18:04

And until next time go bills.